Discussion
Your assignment asks you to discuss in an essay the implications of creating synthetic life and to write a report from 2050 in which you describe the effects the applications of synthetic life forms have had.
In what follows, we will look at each of these requirements and give you some points on the topics, based on the information found in the two texts.
The implications of creating synthetic life
In 2008, J. Craig Venter, an American scientist, managed to create a synthetic organism, a bacteria. The bacteria was created by replicating the DNA of an existing bacteria and inserting it into a different species of bacteria which was stripped of its own DNA.
The two texts in your assignment discuss the possible implications of this scientific breakthrough.
First of all, this achievement paves the way for further developments in the field of synthetic life which will inevitably lead to a future in which fully synthetic organisms could be created. This is mentioned in both texts, which underline that there is no going back after this discovery. This, in turn, could have both positive and negative implications.
The positive implications of creating synthetic life mentioned in the two texts are :
- Synthetic life can be used to serve mankind. It could be designed to reduce pollution, to create new vaccines, to treat various viruses, and even mental illnesses. (Text I and Text II)
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The future effects of the applications of synthetic life forms
In your report from 2050, you should describe the effects the applications of synthetic life forms have had. The information available in the two texts in your assignment can help you develop various future scenarios.
In one future scenario, a bio-error of synthetic life forms may cause more damage than good to the environment (Text I). This will inevitably have a strong impact on the human race as well. Water might become undrinkable or the synthetic life forms may produce too much oxygen and too little carbon dioxide, making the air unbreathable. In these circumstances, the number of people on Earth might fall dramatically and life could turn into a constant fight for survival.
In a similar dystopian scenario, synthetic life forms might be purposefully designed to be used as bio-weapons by terrorists, fanatics, or psychopaths (Text I). In this case, the synthetic life forms might not attack the environment, but be used to attack the human race directly.
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